‘Too interesting!’ Los Gatos pulls out thriller over Homestead to reach CCS Division I championship game ...Middle East

LOS GATOS — Los Gatos had a stable lead. 

And then the Wildcats didn’t. 

Down the stretch of the Cats’ 50-46 CCS Division I semifinal win over Homestead on Thursday night in Los Gatos, the home team entered the early minutes of the fourth quarter with a comfortable 45-30 advantage. 

Los Gatos still led 48-38 with 2:05 to play. But the proceedings quickly became tense when Homestead ripped off an 8-0 run over the next minute and a half punctuated by Hope Yin’s putback layup and continuation free throw with the clock stopped at 26.5 seconds.

Homestead continued to cause havoc with its pressure defense, forcing the ball out of bounds in the backcourt. But Los Gatos steadied the ship and inbounded the ball successfully, then finally advanced it to the frontcourt. 

After a series of three Homestead fouls to give, senior Hanna Behnami stepped to the line for Los Gatos and made one of two free throws. 

Down 49-46, Homestead hurried the ball up the court and found an open look for leading scorer Katie Tal. 

But the junior’s 3-pointer from the wing rimmed out, and Sophie Riese banked in the winning free throw for Los Gatos to seal it with 4.1 left.

The Cats advance to the CCS Division I championship on Saturday. Homestead (21-5) awaits its fate as the Mustangs hold out hope for an at-large bid to the CIF NorCal tournament as the third CCS team from Division I.

“Too interesting,” Los Gatos coach Sara Quilici Giles said of the ending. “Just kind of a worst-case scenario steamrolling at the end there. But earlier in the season, we would have given away that game. So it was nice to see the resilience and the free throws made at the end. It was just enough to get it done.”

Los Gatos (20-6) returns to the CCS title game despite having lost two college players in twin bigs Ashley Childers and Nicole Steiner, the nexus of the Wildcats’ dominance of Division I last year.

It’s been a bumpy ride to get to this point. The Cats lost two games in league play, snapping a 41-game win streak in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League’s De Anza Division. 

With that weight off their shoulders, Los Gatos gritted through two huge wins over Los Altos, the presumptive favorite early in league play, and finished first in the league once again. 

Now after two close wins in the D-I bracket, the Wildcats are still standing and back in the title game for the second straight year. 

After losing two pillars of the program, they erected a new one as a collective this season.

“I don’t think anybody thought we’d be here after what we lost last year,” Quilici Giles said. “I thought there was a good chance. I really liked the pieces we had coming back. I’m so proud of their resilience and their hard work and their determination to get back here, because not many people thought we’d be league title winners again and that we’d be back in the CCS finals.”

Los Gatos will face top seed Menlo-Atherton, which the Wildcats beat 42-30 in last year’s championship game.

Whether its season continues or not, Homestead had a lot of pride to take away for Thursday’s game. The Mustangs had their first winning record in three years under coach Megan Fong and pushed Los Gatos to the brink.

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Now they will wait until Sunday, when the NorCal brackets are revealed.

“We really fight and claw for everything,” Fong said. “This season, we had a really nice winning season, and we’re not used to being in that position. But in years prior, that really showed, that experience. Because for the last couple years, we’ve really been clawing away at it. And it was nice to get the results this season, but obviously we fell a little short. But it shows all the grit that the girls have put in throughout the last few years.” 

Lola Cuevas, Rita Zhou and Behnami co-led Los Gatos with 12 points. Jenna Webb added seven.

Tal paced Homestead with 15 points, and Leona Kovaci added 11. Hope Yin had nine.

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